'The Real and Reel Casablanca' on exhibit at World War II Museum in Natick

Sunday

Nov 5, 2017 at 10:49 AM

By Chris Bergeron Correspondent

NATICK - Americans likely know more about Humphrey Bogart’s romantic conflicts in the movie “Casablanca’’ than they do about General George Patton’s victorious assault on Nazi Germany’s North African stronghold of the same name.

Those misconceptions get blown apart in “The Real and Reel Casablanca,” an informative special exhibition at the International Museum of World War II.

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United States entering the war, the exhibit is both a history lesson that freedom is preserved by the sacrifices of real men and women and a reminder that Hollywood romances linger longer in memory than military campaigns.

Organized by founding owner Kenneth Rendell, the exhibit features more than 75 artifacts from the Natick museum’s collection, many which have never been shown before, that display not just the lethal tools of war but rare documents that reveal the strategies and hidden machinations the Allies used to discourage intervention from French Vichy forces collaborating with the Germans.

The exhibit opens Nov. 8, 75 years to the day of the actual invasion.

Some of the exhibit’s most striking artifacts include:

* General Dwight Eisenhower’s decoded message, “Play Ball,” to launch the attack known as Operation Torch

* Artifacts from the movie “Casablanca” including Bogart’s handwritten chess moves, vintage posters and a chair from Rick’s Café

* The annotated invasion map of General Patton who commanded the Western Task Force at Casablanca

* Handwritten letters from Eisenhower and Erwin “The Desert Fox” Rommel, the American and German commanders, respectively, to their wives

Sue Wilkins, the museum’s director of education, said the exhibit contrasted the “real” battle for Casablanca and the now classic film that was released a few weeks after the invasion to a public starved for information about the exotic location.

The “real” Casablanca was a bloody baptism of fire for the Americans and British troops, she said, who suffered more than 1,000 deaths and 750 wounded from French Vichy forces who offered armed resistance despite Allies' pleas not to intervene.

One of the exhibit’s most striking artifacts is Patton’s letter to the Sultan of Morocco, asking that Allied forces landing in his country be accepted as “friends, not as conquerors, not as enemies” in their campaign to subdue the German occupiers.

Patton concludes by forcefully warning that he will respond “with utmost violence known to modern war” if the French forces offer armed resistance to Allied forces.

Wilkins pointed out two ceremonial daggers Patton gave the Sultan who did not support the Germans.

She said the President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted on the invasion of North Africa “overruling his generals for one of only two times in the war” because he felt America’s untested troops were not ready for a European invasion.

A life-sized model of Patton wearing his dress uniform resembles the legendary general but does not have the mad glint in his eye of actor George Scott who won an Oscar, which he refused to accept, for his portrayal of the general in a popular film of the same name.

The “reel” Casablanca delivers the familiar Hollywood fluff of jaded idealists, gorgeous dames, nefarious Nazis and the patriotic resistance leader all set in an exotic location.

Originally titled “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” Wilkins said “Casablanca” won Oscars for best picture and director and eventually became the sixth highest grossing film of 1943.

Both military and movie buffs should find plenty to see and enjoy in “The Real and Reel Casablanca.”

Machine guns and the standard M-1 carbine are on display along with Vichy propaganda and the original script of “Casablanca.”

Wearing a white tux and worldly scowl, Bogie still gets to act nobly with the lovely Ingrid Bergman as Dooley Wilson plays “As Time Goes By.”

But the real heroes are the American and British troops who launched the campaign that eventually drove German forces from North Africa.